Transcript

Finding the Champion Inside of You | Arthur Mitchell | TEDxUNCCharlotte

[Music] when thinking over a champion think about perseverance active activities get to the next level doing different things you know to get the title at the end but we think about champions we think about the late great kobe bryant tom brady muhammad ali mike tyson but i realize guys that they're championing us as well as a champion in me so it was something we had to go through each and every day of our lives get to the next level something we had to fight daily it may took some time but we got to that point because we wanted just that bad i realized at an urgent age at age six so i never forget it guys i was getting ready for school got the fresh kicks on the clothes i was ready because this is kindergarten though i did preschool i did daycare but going to after school i was seeing my friends people i never knew before to make new friends but what i wanted to classroom guys something was different my vision was blurry and i couldn't understand why from this from home to school my vision was blurring so what i did i went to the back of the classroom because i didn't want nobody though detention be drawn all on me lo and behold it was all on me she called my name mr mitchell can you see what's in the back on the board no ma'am i can't see nothing on the board because my vision is blurry of course the kids are ridiculed because neither one of them knew what's going on so at the end of class you said men didn't see the eye doctor because the cats don't want your vision so i say okay cool no now imagine the age of six go to an ad doctor no we all we had was getting our shots for school different things but going in front of an eye doctor getting dilated having a little machine on your eyes telling you want to look at that abc the lions it was different from me so going through there about an hour realized i would diagnose with the eye disease called keratoconus and what cancer coroners is the oddities how your eyes oval am i like a football  pressing to my pupil causing my visually blurry now imagine the age of six you know you want to be a normal kid want to play in the sandbox tell you how to go see play with legos but your main focus were trying to see so as i continue out through the elementary school process you know people ask questions you know what's going on why are you so close to the board why'd you eventually blurry but i couldn't explain it in what was going on so i just kept it to myself but i realized at an early age it was a champion inside of me my mom and dad couldn't support like i wanted because i didn't know what the actual disease was because john hawker said that it's a very rare disease in america that only one and three other people had this disease i was the one of them so i ended up thinking about saying what can i do now ages six i can't see well i'm not able to do what i want to do outside but something that simon said there's a champion inside of you so i put the gloves on i start the fight so getting to middle school now it's a different whole different ball game everybody older know everybody got the joint zone now back there with jordan we got the jordans on there everybody doing different things so there was more attention withdrawing than me you know asking me like different questions why you look so blind uh why are your and why you go through so many different you know different with your phone so close to your eyes the board will look kind of different what's going on and again i couldn't tell nobody guys nobody knew what character clothes was it was the oddities how you know it was very rare nobody knew you know not like glaucoma a cataract it was a rare disease that only a few people had it so get to elementary school that's what i'm asking middle school that's where the bullying began the rejection the loneliness people not want to be my friend not want to pick me on the sports not want to play with me at pe it was very difficult for me guys but i knew that the glove's about to get tighter the round's about to get longer but i knew the champion inside of me the order to this level i had to fight because i had to fight how to understand it things happen in your life for a purpose you never know what the purpose is at an early age but they continue to go through the process their journey becomes greater so going through middle school i did what i liked different things went on when i got through the middle school kind of let myself not let honest i wanted myself go through different situations without understanding the fight in me so now i'm in high school now guys you know what high school is it's different ball game now i know we went from jordan's the timberlands now we got polos we got different things differently now everybody developing everybody getting older so okay so it became a attention trapped on me everybody look at that arthur ah man bro you know your eyes you know what's going on why you can't see why your phone's so close to your face or you got a thick glasses it was just it was crazy right did y'all understand right sticks and stones or break your bones but where's it never hurt you yeah they hurt because they hurt me but i knew there was something inside of me that had to keep on pushing the gloves got tighter the rounds got longer but i knew what to fight so i kept on going i kept the point of life bottled up with all this anger resentment because they wouldn't know what was going on if i tell them they know them but they didn't know then so i just kept on fighting so i graduated with high school i want to let people know that my disability doesn't affect my ability that no matter what i go through what i went through i'm gonna keep on going i'm gonna be in the special ed classes i'm gonna be in a class i'm gonna go through the regular normal kid because my disability didn't affect who i was i was gonna be great regardless what it looked like how i looked like how i felt like inside so when i graduated high school it was time for me to research i want to know okay is this something that can be cured or it's something that could be no doubt because dealing with this for elementary to high school it got to be some kind of prop procedure or solution that could happen so i ended up finding a adopted adult in their north carolina but they specialized in keratoconus and they told me they had a procedure called corneal transplant see what according to transplant is the added our procedure where they check your corneal and give you a deceased corneal to help your vision better you probably said wow that's what i said so imagine somebody going into your eye doing surgery somebody saw a tv show i thought i was waking up with x-ray vision seeing somebody eyes it was kind of crazy hold on they're gonna go in my eyes take out my cornea that don't sound right but guys i want to be normal again i was tired of living that life man at six years old boy can't see i would try not being picked for the sports teams i would tie not being picked to be a friend to go to a movie i would have to go outside have my mama hold my hand cause i can't see the curb at night i was tired of people looking at me like i was funny so i want to be normal again so i said okay lord and behold they know how seven eye surgeries you have seven of them cause each one of the tissue within it and they broke but i'll never forget this system guys which is the pivotal part of my life when i woke up the doctor said y'all died on a surgery table i said don say yes you almost we got to use the shock treatment to get you up because your sleep apnea would like to wake up i said hold on this this is crazy i had four surgeries the fifth one different but that was the breaking point the breakable when i woke up and my vision was still blurry and then really it immediately took me back to that six-year-old boy for walking in that classroom wondering what was going on so i said doc what's going on why is it why is this happening to me he said take time i never forget walking into my kitchen one day that during the first time asking my wife i said why would everything look good it begins it begins to go bad and i broke i was just tired of everything that was going on you six years old want to come to school to play a sandboxing and learn how to your abc's but you're trying to see you're in middle school trying to learn how to do math and addition it's attractive but you're trying to see you're in high school now trying to learn geometry learn how to write papers but you're trying to see and i'm broke and i heard something tell me i'm going to turn your pain into your purpose i'm going to use what you went through for the last 20 some years to show people that your disability doesn't affect your ability and if a champion inside of you who keep on pushing people going through the success of life so the gloves got tighter the rounds got longer and i began to fight so understand that i said okay there's something about this that i went through there's something about why my vision was so blurry for so many years something about me not seeing how i want to see but i understood it was a assignment behind this is the mission behind all this to show me that only your strong survive as you get through this you'll give you anything else so i began to get into a community that put my purpose out of me again to show me who i was they said that you could use your vision to tell people how they could see through their vision they're showing me how to your disability for your ability that you still be a father a husband an entrepreneur a full-time worker no matter circumstances no matter who you are your paths don't get to your future you got to keep on fighting but when i broke though i took a rest and it's okay take breaks how you gotta understand just like in the ring when the bell when the bell rings for the i stopped around they go sit down split in the cup and get back up and that's what we had to do so understanding that i now talk to kids especially his needs to help them understand the purpose of who they are and how how to continue to grow longer in life so first i gotta tell the kids at schools they got to sit through the yard it took me a while to who i was i don't want to be considered a blind i don't want to consider a disabled i don't want to consider not able to see like regular kids because i knew who i was and the quicker you accept who you are guys the better your journey would be the better process to go because like we have processes but you can't avoid the process you got to keep going through the journey because it's a great award at the end so i continue to learn that i showed him the look don't let don't let what you have stop who you can become you'll become that graphic designer you'll become that lawyer that doctor teacher you become all the dead but you just know who you want accepted i thought who i tell them gotta make their adjustments i'll never forget making adjustments causing me a laughter right so in seventh grade i want to play football so y'all know in seventh grade the helmets are small so i'm trying to fit the helmet over my glasses and it was kind of funny because i got i got it on everything became foggy i guess i would bend it too hard because it was crazy so i ended up know taking it off i went to my guy said yo i'm gonna be a football man but i can't see what can i do he said how bad do you want it i said i want it bad and guys if you want it bad enough you can make the adjustments cause not here to hurt you but make you better in the long run so i end up playing anyway but it taught me a lesson that i didn't get i didn't start but i knew i knew how to play the game so once i got to high school with the bigger helmets that actually fit i was at the play and make things happen so i tell them look make their adjustments you may have to you know do do things differently you may have to maneuver differently but they're here to make you better because who you are inside is better than you becoming the outside and once you fix this the outside becomes greater who you can become then i tell them continue to grow as a person throughout this i like to go as a person i could have easily thrown a child with the fifth surgery but i knew it was a simon's admission i knew it was something greater than what i'm going through i knew it was something greater than all my tried and tribulations all my obstacles all my things i went through i said what i continue to grow as a person i understood that okay now it's time to give back it's not about you no more about them like they're dealing you they're doing living with depression dealing with anxiety dealing with giving up dealing with suicide thoughts dealing with bullying because people look at you differently because you may have different kind of you look different than them so i knew that as i can see the voice of a person it's going to help me understand more and more while i'm doing what i'm doing so i'm going to leave you with this guys famous quote general he said for things that change you got to change when things get better it's got to get better but things to improve you've got to improve and when you approve you want to send the champion inside of you thank you [Music] you